Tag: laptops

Acer Nitro 17 (2024, AMD) Review: Great Power Yet Affordable

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With all the chatter about the artificial intelligence features of Intel’s new Core Ultra CPUs, it’s easy to forget that AMD has been busy doing AI too. AMD has outfitted many of its Ryzen processors with neural processing units (NPUs) since mid-2023, and it’s continued to expand its AI offerings ever since.

Acer’s latest Nitro 17 gaming laptop (model number AN17-42-R9TH) is built atop an AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS, which sits near the top of AMD’s product line. If you’re engaging with AI on the desktop, you’ll probably bypass the CPU altogether. With the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics processor in the Nitro 17, everything from gaming to AI image generation gets a significant boost. Aside from the processors, Acer hasn’t exactly pushed the specs to the limit here: 16 GB of RAM and a 1-terabyte solid-state drive are more or less entry-level options today.

That’s just what’s under the hood. On the outside, the Nitro 17 is every bit the beast you are probably expecting, with a 17.3-inch screen (resolution limited to 1,920 X 1,080 pixels), a daunting 34-millimeter thickness, and a weight that tops 6.3 pounds. It is the heaviest and thickest laptop I’ve tested since 2018, and that’s without the power brick (another full pound).

Photograph: Acer

This laptop has been tricked out for gamers—arguably gamers from the ’90s, but gamers all the same. Sharp, angled corners abound from every angle. The screen is spaced away from the back of the laptop by about a centimeter and propped up on a small riser that feels like a separate device bolted on top of the chassis. It’s largely the same design as 2023, minus a few graphical flourishes.

The responsive keyboard rests in a beveled tray, and it’s color-backlit with four tunable zones and a variety of modes that let colors roll across the keys in various patterns. There’s a numeric keypad and full-size arrow keys along with custom keys, like a Copilot button and a Nitro key that launches Acer’s NitroSense software, which lets you tune every aspect of the laptop experience. Above the keyboard is a stand-alone button that cycles through four power modes, from Quiet to Turbo, all exactly what they sound like.

A tour around the sides and back of the laptop reveals plenty of ports, including two USB-C ports— one USB 3.2, one USB 4—an HDMI jack, a microSD card slot, a full-size Ethernet adapter, and three USB-A ports—one USB 3.2 and one USB 2.0. Why there’s a crusty old USB 2.0 port on the device I can’t fathom, but with this many connectivity options, it probably doesn’t matter much. Much of the rest of the space around the edges features various vents and grilles for the dual exhaust fans. When they run, which is any time there’s a moderate load on the machine, they can get a bit noisy, though I’ve encountered plenty of louder machines in recent years. I expected more from the speakers on the unit, though they’re fine for casual entertainment and gaming use.

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April 30, 2024
4 Best Gaming Laptops (2024): From Cheap to Premium

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The Razer Blade 14 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) blew me away when I tried it right around when Starfield came out. Razer is known for its high-end gaming laptops, and the slim, aluminum chassis on this laptop has the same luxe build quality we’ve liked it for in the past. But the 2,560 x 1,600 IPS, G-Sync-compatible display is what caught my attention. Even at 30 to 40 percent brightness, it felt bright and vivid, with blacks so dark it’s as if the screen disappears in dark rooms. It’s not quite what you’d see in an OLED display, but it was close enough that it fooled me for hours while I flew through space. Best of all, the 240-Hz panel allows for ultrahigh frame rates for the smoothest gameplay.

Inside, the Blade 14 comes equipped with the powerful AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS. There is a slightly newer version with the Ryzen 9 8945HS, but you likely won’t see much of a difference in performance. You also get 16 GB of DDR5 RAM, a 1-TB NVMe SSD, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU (upgradeable to an RTX 4070). The RTX 4060 is decently powerful, but the RTX 4070 is a respectably strong GPU that can help power through even demanding games like Starfield. It also has a USB-C and USB-A port on both the left and right of the laptop, making it convenient to plug in peripherals. It comes with a full-size HDMI port too. It includes a large charging block, which you’ll need for charging while playing power-hungry games, but you can charge it via USB-C if you need to top it off while working. It’s pricey, but the Blade 14 routinely dips to $2,000, which is great value.

Specs to look for: AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060/4070 Laptop GPU, 16 GB DDR5, 1-TB NVMe PCIe SSD, 14-inch 2,560 X 1,600 IPS display with 240-Hz refresh rate.

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April 23, 2024
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Review: A Gaming Laptop Perfect for Both Work and Play

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A beefy graphics card paired with the lovely 14-inch screen size at an affordable price? That’s the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, and when you add extras like an OLED display and battery life impressive for a gaming laptop, it’s hard for me to not fall in love with this thing.

The G14 is the smallest model in the Zephyrus line, so it’s extremely portable. You can outfit it with an Nvidia RTX 4060 or 4070 graphics card, depending on whether you want to save some cash or max it out. It feels as comfortable to use as the Macbook Air M1 (2020) that I use for work, but it comes with luxury features that make playing games—and even watching movies—a top-tier experience.

Work-Life Balance

The Zephyrus G14 isn’t built to be a powerhouse—consider a laptop like the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 for that—but what power it does have is well allocated. The Zephyrus is powered by AMD’s Ryzen R9 8945HS, a powerful processor, paired with the RTX 4060 laptop graphics card—it tackles most games with ease and can even run some of the heaviest AAA titles reasonably well.

Both Starfield and Cyberpunk 2077 managed to maintain a respectable 50 to 60 frames per second on medium graphics settings at the laptop’s full 2,880 X 1,800 resolution. Starfield dipped to around 40 fps in areas like New Atlantis that have famously struggled to get very high frame rates. But this is still reasonably high given that Starfield is capped at 30 fps on the Xbox.

Photograph: Eric Ravenscraft

When adjusting the display to 1,080p, I could crank the graphics settings in Cyberpunk and Starfield up to high while maintaining roughly the same 50 to 60 fps. By staying on medium, I got over 60 fps in both games. I prefer the latter approach since smoother gameplay feels better for me than extra foliage detail, but there’s flexibility here to tailor the experience to your desires.

Like most gaming laptops, you won’t spend much time playing on this machine away from a charger. However, the G14 still impressed by getting nearly two hours of gameplay while running games like Cyberpunk. Overwatch 2 lasted closer to an hour and a half, which makes sense, given that in faster-paced competitive games, I tend to lean on getting at least 90 fps for a smooth experience.

When using the laptop for more typical work or casual use, I got closer to 11 hours of battery life, impressive among any Windows laptop. I could easily use the Zephyrus G14 as my daily driver and feel comfortable getting an entire day’s worth of work done on a single charge.

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April 23, 2024
Laptop Buying Guide (2024): How to Choose the Right PC (Step-by-Step Guide)

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The next two or three numbers (“55”) are related to performance. The higher these numbers are, the more powerful the chip is. This is true within only that chip line, though. The Intel Core i7-1365U is slightly more powerful than the Intel Core i7-1355U, but much less powerful than the Intel Core i9-1335H. The i9 chip is always more powerful than the i7, the i7 more powerful than the i5, and the difference is greater than the difference between any two chips in the same chip line.

The letter at the end of the chip name (“U” in our example) is Intel’s designation for the chip’s purpose. For laptops, the letters you’ll see at the end are Y, U, H, and HX. The Y series chips are optimized for battery life, which is good if you’re frequently away from a plug for long periods of time, but that added battery life comes at the expense of some performance. H chips are optimized for performance, and U chips are “power efficient” but not “extremely” efficient like the Y line. The newest of the bunch is the HX designation, which are chips that Intel calls “desktop replacement class.” They’re the most powerful of the bunch, but you will get less battery life from laptops with HX chips.

AMD Processors

AMD’s chip naming is just as difficult to decipher as Intel’s. In the name AMD Ryzen 5 7600X, the “7” is the generation (how old it is—higher is better), and the “6” is how powerful it is. A “6” would make this example a medium-powered chip, whereas a 3 or 4 would be weaker (slower). The next two numbers don’t have much impact on anything. The “X” at the end indicates high performance. Other letter designations include U for ultra-low power (for better battery life).

Is there a huge difference between Intel and AMD chips? My experience, testing dozens of both every year, is that it depends. Generally speaking, an Intel i5 is indistinguishable from a Ryzen 5 outside of very specific benchmarks. They’re similar when you’re doing things like browsing the web or editing documents. The same goes for the Intel i7 and Ryzen 7, and the Intel i3 and the Ryzen 3.

Graphics performance is where you’ll notice a difference. In my testing, in both benchmarks and real work use, AMD’s integrated graphics tend to perform better than Intel on graphics-intensive tasks—think editing videos or playing games. Intel’s most recent series of chips has closed that gap significantly, but AMD still has an edge. You may benefit from buying an AMD machine if you’re a video editor or gamer, but what you most likely want is a dedicated graphics card. (More on that in the GPU section below.)

Apple Processors

Apple makes a number a chips these days, used in both MacBooks, iPads, and iPhones. Fortunately the designations are pretty simple. There are three chips in the lineup: the M1, M2, and M3. The M1 is the oldest and slowest; the M3 is the newest and fastest. Within each of those chip lines there are different models, ranging from the base model, Pro, Max, and Ultra. The base model is the least powerful, while the Ultra is the most powerful. Again, we have a separate guide to Macs with a full breakdown of each chip, all the model designations, and which one you want for different tasks.

How Much Processing Power Do You Need?

If you’re a typical user who runs a web browser, Microsoft’s Office Suite, and perhaps even some photo editing software, we recommend a laptop with an Intel Core i5 10th-generation or later processor. That would be displayed as something like “Intel Core i5-10350U.”

If you can afford it, an Intel i7 chip makes a nice upgrade and will make your laptop feel snappier. The extra power often means shorter battery life though, so you’ll need to balance that with your needs. A gaming laptop, for instance, would use an i7 (or i9) chip, but an i5 is usually fine for less demanding tasks. Likewise, for the average user, the AMD Ryzen 5000 series will suffice, but the Ryzen 7000 makes a nice upgrade—again at the cost of battery life.

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April 23, 2024
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Ultra Review: A Powerful Laptop

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It’s been a long time since I’ve used a laptop with a screen larger than 13 or 14 inches for any length of time. It’s so refreshing to have the room to spread my apps out … even if the machine no longer fits in my backpack. Maybe being able to fit your bag under the seat in front of you is overrated.

Compared to the cavalcade of 13- and 14-inch laptops that cross my desk, the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Ultra, with its 16-inch touchscreen (2,880 x 1,800 pixels), is a behemoth. Weighing in at 3.9 pounds (but only 19 mm thick), it has a heft that’s backed up by its top-shelf specs, which include 32 GB of RAM, a 1-terabyte SSD, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card. The centerpiece is the new Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor, the current top-of-the-line processor in Intel’s Core Ultra CPU lineup.

Photograph: Samsung

As benchmarks go, the Galaxy Book4 ran rings around all the other Core Ultra laptops I’ve tested in the last few weeks since the new chips launched, though none of those had an Ultra 9 or a discrete graphics processor. On some CPU-based tests, the system doubled up on the performance of the Lenovo X1 Carbon, and on graphics-based tests, I was regularly able to get three to five times the frame rates I saw on machines that used the Core Ultra integrated graphics processor. The Book4 is certainly credible for use as a gaming rig if desired. Plus with 12 hours and 43 minutes of battery life, as tested via my full-screen YouTube rundown test, you need not fret about being away from an outlet all day.

The larger chassis gives Samsung room to squeeze a numeric keypad into the picture, though I longed for full-size arrow keys when working with the device. The responsive keyboard is paired with one of the largest touchpads I’ve ever seen on a laptop. At 6 x 4 inches, it’s considerably bigger than a standard passport—arguably too big, as there’s barely room on the left side of the touchpad for your palms to rest. I generally disliked working with this touchpad, as I found it both missed clicks and inadvertently registered unintended taps much too often.

Photograph: Samsung

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April 17, 2024
Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 (2024) Review: Portable Powerhouse Gaming

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The Mini LED display is the primary differentiator between last year’s Strix Scar 18 model. Both can be upgraded to the RTX 4090, and both come with 32 GB of DDR5 RAM (though the 2024 model’s is a bit faster). The 2024 model has a slightly newer 14th-generation Intel Core i9-14900HX processor. Based on specs alone, I might be tempted to suggest looking for last year’s model on sale, but the Mini LED display with local dimming is such a great upgrade that it makes the newer machine stand out.

A Powerhouse Engine

It’s hard to find a more tricked-out gaming laptop, and the ROG Strix Scar 18 performs like the beast it is. The Intel Core i9-14900HX is one of the best laptop processors for gaming in raw power, and the Nvidia RTX 4090 laptop GPU is a powerhouse.

In Starfield, I consistently hit 60 fps even in high-density, low-optimized areas like New Atlantis, and regularly hovered around 80 to 90 fps in less demanding areas. Cyberpunk 2077 hit an even more impressive 90 fps during combat. Overwatch 2—a team-based online shooter designed to be less graphically demanding—stayed near 240 fps even in wild, chaotic team fights.

All of that is when the laptop is plugged into the charger. Raw power isn’t just a metaphor; the harder you push a GPU the more electricity it takes, and it generates more heat. Even starting games like Starfield or Cyberpunk 2077 made the laptop’s fans audibly whirr to life. If I had the machine on my lap, it immediately felt warm—but not quite hot—to the touch. I’d advise employing a lap desk with a hard surface to keep the laptop separate from your legs, and to maintain airflow.

When it’s not connected to the charger, however, performance (understandably) drops. Starfield and Cyberpunk got closer to 60 to 90 fps, which was still more than playable. However, games that demand high frame rates for competitive play, like Overwatch 2, were a bit more of a challenge. I dropped the frame rate as low as I could manage, down to 60 fps and at a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, which would be more than enough for most other games. Still, it was simply too choppy for me to play my usual heroes, and I got through only two or three games before the battery was low enough that I didn’t think I could make it through another match.

This is typical for gaming laptops with this much power. Asus cites the ROG Strix Scar 18’s battery life at around 5.6 hours for normal work, and games use a lot more power than Slack and Excel. Combined with how powerful the processor and GPU are, you should really expect to do heavy gaming only while close to an outlet. If you want to play light games like Stardew Valley, this machine is overkill and you can meet those needs for a few thousand dollars less.

LED Overload

There are a couple of smaller issues I’d be remiss not to address. Asus still hasn’t shed the Edgy Gamer Aesthetic, and it shows with the excessive amount of RGB LEDs. There are the usual LEDs in every key on the keyboard, which is fine—plus a strip of LEDs wrapped around the front edge of the laptop, a second strip on the rear just behind the screen hinge, and LED backlighting inside the logo on the back side of the screen. While plugged in and charging but not in use, the LEDs animate with a red sweeping motion every few seconds. It was distracting and annoying.

Microsoft has also made it somewhat more annoying to figure out how to turn off lighting effects (for now). Typically, controlling built-in LEDs meant fiddling with every company’s proprietary RGB LED controller app. Microsoft recently added tools directly into Windows to control lighting, making things simpler for consumers and manufacturers. As manufacturers add more support for the new tools, the Dynamic Lighting features should help make things a bit more coherent.

Until that happens, however, things are a bit worse. In the Asus Armoury Crate app, there’s a tab for Aura Sync (Asus’ proprietary lighting controller system), with a link that kicks you out to Windows’ Settings app. But some functions, like the sleep mode LEDs, are still controlled by the Armoury Crate app under a different section. It took a while to find the right toggles and get things working the way I wanted.

The Asus Strix Scar 18 is an incredible gaming laptop that packs a truckload of raw power with a price and bulky frame to match. If you already have a gaming laptop with anything better than an RTX 2080 (or equivalent), you won’t need to upgrade to this unless you’ve started playing much more demanding games. However, if you’re looking for a gaming laptop that will last you for several years without feeling its age—with a screen so vivid it rivals most TVs, plus plenty of ports to connect to external hardware—the ROG Strix Scar 18 is well worth it.

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April 15, 2024
MSI Prestige 13 AI Evo Review: A Lightweight and Powerful Laptop

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MSI has long been an under-the-radar producer of PCs and laptops, with as many hits as misses in its repertoire. As we enter the “AI laptop” age, MSI’s first volley in the new category lands squarely on the hit side, with its Prestige 13 AI Evo nailing an effective balance among price, performance, and portability.

As the name suggests, the Prestige 13 is an ultraportable 13.3-inch laptop, featuring a 2,880 X 1,800-pixel OLED display (no touchscreen). Inside is an entry-level Intel Core Ultra 5 125H CPU with 16 GB of RAM and a 512-GB SSD. Nothing fancy, but enough to get the job done. There’s also a version with the Core Ultra 7 with double the RAM and storage for not much more.

For those of you who haven’t been following the microchip world closely, Intel’s Core Ultra series features (among other innovations) a new neural processing unit designed specifically to improve artificial intelligence operations. The “Evo” designation is bestowed on devices by Intel for laptop designs that “pass rigorous testing around performance, battery life, connectivity, audio and visual quality, size, weight, and more.”

Photograph: MSI

With that preface, I’ll start where the laptop soars the highest: performance. The Prestige indeed lives up to its name on general apps and AI-related tests. MSI’s ultralight Windows machine ran rings around the performance of the more tricked-out Lenovo X1 Carbon, which features a faster Core Ultra processor. The MSI bested it on general app benchmarks by 3 to 47 percent, depending on the test, and the difference was noticeable in daily use, as the Prestige felt whip-crack fast to load apps, recalculate spreadsheets, and the like. The picture wasn’t as rosy in its graphics capabilities, as the lower-end CPU and lack of memory suppressed frame rates on video tasks considerably—although the Prestige did perform surprisingly well on photo rendering tests.

At 2.1 pounds and 18-mm thick, this laptop is about as portable as it gets in the 13.3-inch category, though more diminutive 13.0-inch units can be a few ounces lighter. Available in white or black, the magnesium-aluminum alloy chassis isn’t the sturdiest I’ve felt lately, but at the same time, it doesn’t come across as flimsy.

Photograph: MSI

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April 2, 2024
HP Spectre x360 14 Review: The Best Windows 2-in-1 Laptop

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Once an edgy alternative to stuffier laptops like the Lenovo ThinkPad line, the HP Spectre x360 series has settled into a much more corporate groove of late. Back in the late 2010s, Spectres looked like props from Tron, with sharp edges, cut corners, and gold trim on some models, for Pete’s sake.

Alas, those days are over, and while the Spectre x360 is still a top-shelf ultralight Windows laptop, it has traded in style for consistency. All-gentle, OSHA-friendly curves clad in corporate black, silver, and blue give the sense that the Spectre didn’t sell out, but rather bought in.

The 2024 rendition of the Spectre x360 sticks closely to the design of the 2023 model, all built around showcasing the “360” portion of the name. A pair of hinges allows the screen to fold back 180 degrees, converting the laptop into a 14-inch tablet. A fingertip works on the screen, as does the stylus included in the box, and the rechargeable active pen snaps magnetically to the side of the chassis when not in use.

Photograph: HP

As with most new machines hitting the market this season, the major upgrade here is the introduction of the AI-infused Intel Core Ultra CPU—in this instance, the Ultra 7 155H model, backed up by a beefy 32 GB of RAM and a 2-TB solid state drive. The unit is a bit light on ports, with two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports (one used for charging) and a single USB-A port partially covered by an awkward and unnecessary spring-loaded, flip-out panel.

Sure enough, there’s ample power in those specs, and the Spectre x360 turned in the best performance I’ve seen to date on general business apps—by a healthy margin of 20 percent or more versus other Core Ultra laptops on many tests. It was about par for the course on graphics apps, though no slouch in this department either. Despite improvements in the Core Ultra’s integrated GPU, you’ll still need to upgrade to a laptop with a discrete graphics processor if you want to undertake significant gaming or rendering activities. On AI tasks, the Spectre fell just a hair shy of the high mark set by the MSI Prestige 13 AI Evo in my prior testing.

Size and weight are fine, although the unit is heavier than the similarly sized Lenovo X1 Carbon, with 19 millimeters of thickness and a 2.4-pound weight. That’s not bad considering the inclusion of a touchscreen and the 360-degree hinge. The extra weight may also reflect a slightly larger battery. My testing (with a YouTube video playback at full brightness) achieved 10.5 hours of running time—significantly better than other Core Ultra laptops I’ve tested to date.

Photograph: HP

The OLED screen is dazzlingly bright, which is right in line with the rest of the market today. The speakers on the unit are also excellent, with top-firing tweeters and two front-firing woofers, improved by an impressive cooling system that barely saw the super-silent fan kicking in at all.

My only real complaint is a fairly mild one. While the Spectre’s keyboard is fine, the haptic touchpad can be erratic, missing taps and clicks, depending on where you hit it. I don’t know whether this is a simple user error due to freakishly long fingers, but it’s an issue I’ve had with various Spectres for years. It has arguably improved a bit with the new touchpad, but it’s still a thorny problem that created a minor headache for me during extended use.

Pricing is tricky, as the exact specification I was sent isn’t readily available. You can get a close version for $1,400 on HP.com with 16 GB of RAM, but if you configure it on HP’s website, you’ll come up with a price of around $1,850. Even at the higher price, I’d say the exceptional performance, battery life, and usability options merit the outlay.

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April 1, 2024
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 Review: Too Dang Expensive

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Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Carbon line dates back to 2012, and now, in its 12th incarnation, the laptop has reached a level of maturity few other brands can boast. Today’s X1 Carbon has been honed to a fine point—yet it would be legitimately difficult to distinguish from the original. I’d know, because I reviewed it for WIRED way back when.

Photograph: Lenovo

The song writ large remains the same as ever. This is Lenovo’s flagship ultralight, the business laptop designed to kill all others. It retains the same size 14-inch LCD (with 16:10 aspect ratio, now at 2,880 x 1,800 pixels) that it has always had, with the weight now hitting 2.2 pounds— exhibiting a healthy and steady weight loss over the years.

I measured the thickness at 21 millimeters, largely owing to a sizable rubber foot that runs along the back of the base to prop the keyboard up a bit. The current chassis, in Lenovo’s words, is made from “recycled aluminum, magnesium, aerospace-grade carbon fiber, as well as post-consumer materials that are used throughout its construction.”

Many other innovations here are incremental at best. I mean, when the brand starts talking about “new tactile markings” on the keyboard—those little bumps on the F and J keys—you know we’re getting close to an innovation terminus. There’s also a small ridge that juts out at the top of the screen where the webcam (featuring a manual shutter) appears, plus a relocated fingerprint reader, but any other cosmetic changes are tough to suss out.

Photograph: Lenovo

The big news is under the hood, with the inclusion of the new Intel Core Ultra CPU, this model featuring an Ultra 7 155H chip running at 1.4 GHz. A small brigade of manufacturers is dropping machines with Ultra chips this month, with the big pitch being around artificial intelligence performance, better power efficiency, and improved integrated graphics. AI-driven benchmarks are still a new thing, so until I have a decent base of results to draw from, I’m reporting on my standard battery of tests that mix various business apps and graphics benchmarks.

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March 31, 2024
Best MacBooks (2024): Which Model Should You Buy?

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I generally never felt the need to connect this 15-inch laptop to an external monitor, which was more of a necessity with the 13-inch MacBook Air. If you find these smaller screens to be a little too cramped, then go for the 15-inch MacBook Air.

Best Budget MacBook

The MacBook Air (9/10, WIRED Recommends) from 2020 with the original M1 chip is still a pretty powerful laptop for the money (especially since the price has come down since its launch). My unit is still going strong despite daily, rigorous use. It’s not the snazziest Apple laptop, but it lasts more than a full workday, with the battery hitting 22 percent after I ran it almost nonstop from 9 am to 7 pm using Safari and work apps like Slack. (I had to plug in the old Intel model by 4 pm.)

Unlike older MacBooks you might still find available with Intel chips, this one can instantly wake up from sleep whenever you tap the keyboard or trackpad or lift the screen, just like when you tap your iPhone or iPad to wake it up. There’s no fan here, so it remains whisper-quiet even under the heaviest loads. There is a thermal heat spreader to dissipate heat and it never gets too warm.

You can only buy the base model with 8 GB of unified memory and 256 GB of storage nowadays, which should be sufficient for general-purpose tasks. If you push it with many browser tabs and apps running simultaneously, you may run into some slowdowns. Downsides? The 720p webcam isn’t great. and the M1 chipset only supports one external monitor.

For Power-Hungry Port Lovers

Apple launched the latest 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro less than a year after releasing the M2 Pro and M2 Max versions. In addition to the M3 Pro and M3 Max, you can now configure the 14-inch model with the entry-level M3 chip—replacing the 13-inch Macbook Pro, which Apple no longer sells through its store. The 16-inch can be paired with the M3 Pro or M3 Max. Apple also introduced a new Space Black color, which includes a special treatment that reduces fingerprint smudges, but it’s only available on high-end models.

Both sizes have the same chassis as their predecessors, which come equipped with Mini LED screens (providing deeper blacks and rich color like on the iPad Pro) and a 120-Hz refresh rate for smoother-looking interactions. Apple bumped up the brightness by 20 percent though. It packs a variety of ports, including an HDMI, three USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 (the 14-inch version with M3 has two), an SD card slot, a high-impedance headphone jack, and a MagSafe charging port. You’ll also get a 1080p webcam, a six-speaker sound system, and support for Wi-Fi 6E along with Bluetooth 5.3.

Of the three processor choice options, the M3 Pro and M3 Max are significantly more powerful than most people need. Editing 4K videos? Rendering 3D models in CAD? Producing music? That’s what these machines are intended for. If you’re mostly working through a web browser and typing up documents, these chipsets are overkill. You should opt for the M3-powered version instead. I have tested the 14-inch MacBook Pro with this chip. Performance is smooth—even with multiple apps running simultaneously in the background (like Slack, Spotify, Messages, Notes, Zoom, and Telegram) and about 30 browser tabs open. I do recommend going for 16 gigabytes of unified memory if you can swing it. It’s also worth noting that, while the M3 Pro and M3 Max versions come with support for two external displays out of the box, the M3-powered 14-inch MacBook will have the same capability in a future software update (similar to the M3 MacBook Air models above).

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March 29, 2024